美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Just Ask!' Says Sonia Sotomayor. She Knows What It's Like To Feel Different

 

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Supreme¹ Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has written a new children's book inspired by an experience she had years ago in a restaurant bathroom. A woman walked in while Justice Sotomayor was giving herself an insulin injection.

SONIA SOTOMAYOR: And as I was leaving the restaurant, I walked past her and heard her say to her friend, she's a drug addict². I stopped in my place, and I turned around and said, Madam, I am not a drug addict. I am a diabetic. And that injection you saw me give to myself is insulin. It's the medicine that keeps me alive. If you don't know why someone's doing something, just ask them.

FADEL: "Just Ask!" is written by Justice Sotomayor and illustrated³ by Rafael Lopez.

RAFAEL LOPEZ: I've been known for my color. Coming from Mexico, I grew up surrounded by color, whether you were in the market or you were in the fields or you were just walking around and you can see the buildings of Mexico that are painted so brightly.

FADEL: This summer, we've been asking authors and illustrators how they worked together or separately to bring stories to life. In this book, 12 differently abled children - including Anthony, who uses a wheelchair, Vijay, who is deaf, and Bianca, who is dyslexic - are working in a garden. And as they each contribute something to the garden, it grows brighter and brighter.

LOPEZ: It begins very stark⁴ and very dry. You can see the land very dry and very yellow. And slowly, we start to introduce, as you turn the pages, more and more color, which means that you're also introducing the differences of all of these people and their challenges and yet how they overcome them and how they can work together and how they can contribute to this garden and the same way that they contribute to society. So at the end, the whole idea is that you're bringing this explosion of color. And in a way, you're representing this explosion of diversity that we ideally would like to have in a community.

SOTOMAYOR: I think, Rafael, that one of my favorite scenes is about Julia, who has Tourette's syndrome⁶. And for people who don't know what Tourette's syndrome is, it is a condition where a child's body may be making sounds or moving in uncontrolled ways. And in this scene that Rafael painted, Julia is winking⁷, which is somewhat common into Tourette's but not the only symptom. And there's an owl⁵ in a nearby tree, and the owl and Julia are winking at each other.

LOPEZ: It's one of my favorites, too, and it was one of the most challenging ones because how do you represent some of these things? Like, how do you represent stuttering? How do you represent Tourette's? What do you represent? How do you make it or portray⁸ it in a book without looking offensive or - so there was this sweetness about this animal, this owl, you know, connecting emotionally to Julia and saying, hey, it's totally fine. I love you the way you are, and you're just as beautiful as everyone else.

SOTOMAYOR: Clearly, Rafael, my personal experience with diabetes⁹ was the inspiration, generally, for this book, but it's also - the experts did help me understand more clearly how varied¹⁰ the presentations can be of common conditions. So just as the book shows Jordon and Tiana expressing their autism in different ways, Jordon counts dinosaurs¹¹, and he counts them over and over and over again, and he knows everything there is about dinosaurs. Tiana's autism expresses itself in silence. She really doesn't talk to people. And I thought in writing the book that it was important to show kids the variations in conditions so that when they see a child doing only one of the things the book talks about that they don't think that that means that child is not experiencing something differently.

LOPEZ: One of the reasons I connected to the story is because my son, Santiago, has high-functioning autism. He has - his life experience and his challenges and everything that - he has taught me so much. And he's made me a more patient person. I've been the most impatient person my whole life. And I realize some amazing abilities that he has, like this great memory. He has this amazing ability to remember things. He's an incredible writer. He can write five years ahead of his age. So I have learned so much from my son and I consider what he does superpowers. I look at him and he just - he leaves me speechless.

SOTOMAYOR: The most important takeaway of this book for me is that differences are not bad things, that we are and can have, as Rafael has described it, superpowers, that they can give us the ability to perceive and interact in a world in a positive way. Lots of people think that differences caused by conditions means that you do things in somehow a less meaningful way. I don't want kids to ever think that. I want every child to understand that whatever condition they bear in life, they are special in a good way, never in a bad way.

FADEL: That was Supreme Court Justice and author Sonia Sotomayor and illustrator Rafael Lopez talking about their book, "Just Ask!"

1 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

2 addict   

v.使沉溺；使上瘾；n.沉溺于不良嗜好的人

参考例句：

• He became gambling addict,and lost all his possessions.他习染上了赌博，最终输掉了全部家产。
• He assisted a drug addict to escape from drug but failed firstly.一开始他帮助一个吸毒者戒毒但失败了。

3 illustrated   

adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• His lecture was illustrated with slides taken during the expedition. 他在讲演中使用了探险时拍摄到的幻灯片。
• The manufacturing Methods: Will be illustrated in the next chapter. 制作方法将在下一章说明。

4 stark   

adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地

参考例句：

• The young man is faced with a stark choice.这位年轻人面临严峻的抉择。
• He gave a stark denial to the rumor.他对谣言加以完全的否认。

5 owl   

n.猫头鹰，枭

参考例句：

• Her new glasses make her look like an owl.她的新眼镜让她看上去像只猫头鹰。
• I'm a night owl and seldom go to bed until after midnight.我睡得很晚，经常半夜后才睡觉。

6 syndrome   

n.综合病症；并存特性

参考例句：

• The Institute says that an unidentified virus is to blame for the syndrome. 该研究所表示,引起这种综合症的是一种尚未确认的病毒。
• Results indicated that 11 fetuses had Down syndrome. 结果表明有11个胎儿患有唐氏综合征。

7 winking   

n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮

参考例句：

• Anyone can do it; it's as easy as winking. 这谁都办得到，简直易如反掌。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The stars were winking in the clear sky. 星星在明亮的天空中闪烁。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 portray   

v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等)

参考例句：

• It is difficult to portray feelings in words.感情很难用言语来描写。
• Can you portray the best and worst aspects of this job?您能描述一下这份工作最好与最坏的方面吗？

9 diabetes   

n.糖尿病

参考例句：

• In case of diabetes, physicians advise against the use of sugar.对于糖尿病患者，医生告诫他们不要吃糖。
• Diabetes is caused by a fault in the insulin production of the body.糖尿病是由体內胰岛素分泌失调引起的。

10 varied   

adj.多样的，多变化的

参考例句：

• The forms of art are many and varied.艺术的形式是多种多样的。
• The hotel has a varied programme of nightly entertainment.宾馆有各种晚间娱乐活动。

11 dinosaurs   

n.恐龙( dinosaur的名词复数 )；守旧落伍的人，过时落后的东西

参考例句：

• The brontosaurus was one of the largest of all dinosaurs. 雷龙是所有恐龙中最大的一种。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years. 恐龙绝种已有几百万年了。 来自《简明英汉词典》